Ann Pilling - The Beggar’s Curse

“Old Hob, Old Hob, Give him a tanner, give him a bob,” Tony was shouting, and lurching round the field, careering up to little knots of people who stood warming themselves at the fire. Oliver was fascinated by the horse, and stuck very close to it as Tony charged about, but it was too spooky for Prill.

The huge, grinning skull, hung with tattered ribbons, waved and dipped in the flickering light, and bonfire sparks showered up over it like gold rain. “Come on, Posie,” she whispered, skirting round the edge of the bonfire to avoid Tony and his horrible horse. “Your dad’s brought some sausages out. Should we have one?” Prill had acquired a little friend, George Massey’s two-year-old daughter. They had seen her that afternoon helping her father in the garden, and Prill had crossed the road to say hello.

She was the complete opposite of their small sister. Alison was solid and dark, with a red face, and charged about in a state of perpetual stickiness. This child was doll-like and fragile-looking, with a mass of curly blonde hair. Colin had christened her Goldilocks. Her mother Brenda was at home, trying to get Posie’s six-month-old brother Sam to sleep. Prill was only too delighted to look after her while George Massey carried food round on trays.

The Edges weren’t at all grateful. “It’s not Bonfire Night, y’know,” someone grumbled, inspecting a baked potato, then putting it back. “We don’t normally have food. Any road, it’s burnt this is.” But the Puddings were out in force, all standing in a line and staring into the flames, the fierce light splashing their intense little faces. They grabbed all that was offered, sausages, potatoes, ginger parkin, and gobbled away in silence. “I don’t know,” George Massey muttered to the Blakemans. “There’s no pleasing some people. They might say thank you.”

After about ten minutes the two butcher brothers dragged an old hamper up to the fire and opened the lid. From all over the field dark shadows flocked to it, like wasps to a jampot. Tony left Old Hob in the grass and shoved his way to the front. “Clear off, Rose Salt,” they heard. But the adoring little figure still trailed after him, keeping her distance, in the darkness.

Before the costumes were thrown on the fire people put them on and tore round noisily. There was a definite excitement in the air now; this was obviously much more important than spuds and sausages. George Massey was rather surprised. “I didn’t know this went on,” he said, watching faceless shapes struggle into flopping garments.

Winnie had told them that the Stang Mummers’ costumes were rather special, very brightly coloured, and each one decorated with a special emblem to tell you who it was. On the night all players wore hoods that fell over their faces.

In the dark everything was reduced to a black silhouette, and there was a lot of pushing and shouting. They watched two figures fight over something and eventually tear it in two. Then, quite suddenly, the bobbing shapes separated out like a line of paper men, and went dancing crazily round the bonfire, hand in hand.

“I want to, I want to,” grizzled Posie Massey. She liked dressing up. Her father was feeling rather peeved. His wife had gone to all this trouble with the food, and they’d treated him like dirt. It was his field anyway, the Edges only rented it, and the bonfire was much too close to his fence. They couldn’t do anything properly.

“All right, kid,” he said. “Let’s find you something pretty. Don’t see why those boys should have all the fun, do you?”

“And I want ma horse,” the child whimpered. Posie Massey had a new playroom full of toys, and pride of her collection was a painted hobby horse on a wooden stick. She’d heard there was a horse at the bonfire and she’d brought hers.

It was a night for horses. As they went over to the hamper, Prill heard whinnying in the field by Elphins. Did fire frighten horses, she wondered, or did they warm themselves against the flames, like great cats? She thought of the three horses in the field below her window, Mister and Lucky Lady, the two chestnuts, and William, the lame old carthorse. What had those peaceful creatures to do with this devilish dancing, with these hateful, snapping jaws? Prill longed to be clopping down a quiet country lane on old William’s back, far away from the Edges, Stang, and that brooding pit in the valley bottom.

In helping to dress Posie, and getting her astride her tiny horse, George Massey made his first mistake. “Old Hob, Old Hob,” the child chanted in a little squeaky voice, and went tottering off towards the bonfire where the faceless black dancers were wriggling out of their costumes, rolling them into balls, and hurling them into the fire with hoarse shouts and squeals.

Everything happened very quickly after that. A hand shot out of the shadows and stopped the child in its tracks; in seconds she was surrounded by thrusting figures, a yelling, jostling scrum, all trying to grab the pathetic little prize. She screamed, and a voice said, “You can’t wear that, chuck. Off with it, come on. Got to go on the fire, that has.” Then another voice broke in, a girl’s, hard and peevish. “It’s not fair, any road. Girls can’t be in this. Give it me, will you. I’ll throw it on. Ouch! Give over !”

Costume, mask and hood were torn off the terrified toddler and thrown into the leaping flames, and the toy horse followed. With mirthless shrieks the dancers melted away into the dark, and Posie Massey was left alone on the grass, sobbing for her mother, and with Prill down on her knees, trying to comfort her.

George Massey suddenly saw red. He left Prill and Posie together and stormed off. In less than a minute he was back at the bonfire with something held high above his head. It was Old Hob.

Afterwards he swore that he thought it was part of the custom, that the horse was burned too, along with everything else, but nobody ever believed him. George simply wanted to take part in his own bonfire. They’d laughed at his food, hurt his child, and ignored his instructions about the fence. Nothing was left to burn now, except this great grinning puppet on a stick.

He was a tall man. With one heave he raised the thing right above his shoulders like a dumb-bell, twirled it round twice, then hurled it into the heart of the fire. Tony Edge let out a scream, then he went mad. Gibbering like an idiot he looked round wildly, then he ran to the gate and pulled something out of the grass, an old ladder they’d used to build the bonfire.

“Leave off, Tone!” someone shouted, but he was almost weeping with rage. He dragged his ladder to the fire and managed to lift it up on his own. The children stared, hypnotized, amazed at his brute strength. He was actually trying to crawl along it. “We’ll save him,” he was bellowing. “We’ve got to save him.” His voice was half a scream, half a sob, and for one crazy moment Prill felt quite sorry for him.

But the uncles had taken over and were pulling him back. “Don’t be stupid, Tone! Leave off, will you!” Then – “ Look at the fire, man !” No one had been watching it, and the weight of the ladder had made it slump over towards the freshly creosoted fence. Slowly the bonfire fell to pieces, there was no heart to it and it was shoddily built, like everything the Edges had a hand in. The crowd gasped and George Massey shouted hoarsely “I knew it. I knew something like this would happen.” The fence was alight already, and the flames were spreading right along. It was like watching the fuse go up on a huge firework.

There were buckets of water lined up behind the fence. George had made his preparations, he wasn’t born yesterday. He bellowed instructions to Harold and Frank Edge, then tore off to dial 999. Then he got into his brand-new car and backed it down his drive. Thank heaven my insurance is in order, he was thinking, as he ran back to the field. Let’s hope I won’t need it.